Russia considers nuclear missiles for Syria and Baltic

Russia is planning to install Iskander surface missiles in Syria and its Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad, in a response to United States missile interceptors in Poland and U.S.-Israeli military aid to Georgia, an Israeli news agency reported on Monday.

Moscow seems to be eying Poland, the Middle East, and possibly Ukraine, as the main arenas for its reprisals, as Russia is reported to plan arming warships, submarines and long-range bombers in the Baltic and Middle East with nuclear warheads, DEBKAfile reported.

The plan includes the establishment of big Russian military, naval and air bases in Syriaand the release of advanced weapons systems withheld until now to Iran, with the S-300 air-missile defense system, and the nuclear-capable Iskander to Syria.

Shortly before the Georgian conflict flared, Moscow promised Washington not to let Iran and Syria have these sophisticated pieces of hardware.

The Iskander’s cruise attributes make its launch and trajectory extremely hard to detect and intercept. If this missile reaches Syria, Israel will have to revamp its anti-missile defense array and Air Force assault plans for the third time in two years, as it constitutes a threat which transcends all its defensive red lines.

Moscow’s military planners know this and are therefore considering new sea and air bases in Syria as sites for the Iskander missiles, DEBKAfile reported. Russia would thus keep the missiles under its hand and make sure they were not transferred to Iran, it added.

Israel air raid in July does not destroy all Russian cruise missiles. They are moved to another location. LINK

“Syrian soldiers may have used chemical weapons in a recent lethal attack without receiving permission from President Bashar Assad, the German paper Bild am Sonntag reported Sunday as the US pushed on with efforts to rally support for a military strike against Syria. The paper said that Germany’s intelligence services had intercepted a number of radio transmissions over the past four months, in which officers had asked Assad for permission to use gas — and had always been turned down. It said the requests had come from brigade and division commanders, and that most of the communications were intercepted by a naval vessel sailing off the Syrian coast.” http://www.timesofisrael.com/g…

So if Assad’s Commanders acted on their own in the gas attack then it is possible that these commanders will share some of the Russian missiles with the Herzbollah…at present these missiles are under “Russian supervision”. But for how long. And if the US and its allies do bomb Syria I doubt whether better sense will prevail with the Syrians.